How did I get lean in my late 30's? I finally dialed in my nutrition using the tips below.
So, you're trying to lose weight? Easier said than done for most.
Most people overcomplicate the weight loss process. The single biggest factor is nutrition: what and how much you eat.
You could be perfect with sleep, exercising, weight training, stress management, daily steps, etc but if you don't eat fewer calories than you burn then you...
WILL. NOT. LOSE. WEIGHT.
If your weight isn't dropping, then you need to eat fewer calories than you have been. Here are the easiest ways to do that.
1. Limit / Eliminate liquid calories: This includes basically anything other than protein shakes and very low-calorie sodas (I love Spindrifts, which are about 10-15 calories each).
It starts with sodas - Coke, Sprite, root beer, etc. Arguably one of the greatest contributors to the explosion in diabetes. There is zero reason to drink full-sugar sodas. Have a burger and fries from time to time, but skip the Coke.
Juices aren't far behind sodas. "But juice is natural! It's full of antioxidants. It's healthy." Not really. Juice is just liquid fructose - great for spiking your blood sugar and insulin leading to diabetes if done for years. Plus it does nothing to fill you up since the fiber was removed. Eat the fruit instead. Skip the fruit juice.
Next: sauces, dressings, and creams. They add flavor to your meats, salads, coffee, and pastas along with a shitload of calories. Rather than helping fill you up, they trigger MORE cravings, so you'll eat way past the point of fullness than you would if the food was more bland. Stick to low calories options like mustard, hot sauces, seasonings, and vinaigrettes dressings. Learn to drink your coffee black - I did.
The last liquid calorie source to limit or eliminate is alcohol. There's no need to have a drink every night, which is common for many people. In my opinion it's best to save alcohol for special occasions (assuming you can drink responsibly). The biggest negative side effects from alcohol are how much it impairs sleep and how much junk food you'll eat while or after drinking. These will impact your waistline more than the alcohol itself.
2. Limit / Eliminate heavily processed foods (junk foods): This would include cakes, cookies, chips, crackers, ice cream, candies, a lot of pre-packaged meals, etc.
Don't feel bad if you have a hard time resisting these foods. They're literally created in a lab to make you crave them. Even animals can't stop from binge eating them. When given whole foods, animals eat as many calories as they burn. They will not overeat.
It's a different story when animals are provided junk food. They overeat, they get unhealthy, they get more diseases and die younger than their cousins on the whole food diets.
Junk food is fine in small doses, but too many people can't resist them and overdose on it for years and years. In this case it is a poison.
The first step to break your junk food habit is to stop buying them. Eat before you go grocery shopping so you don't buy things to satisfy cravings. Make a grocery list, leave the junk food off the list, and stick to the list when you're at the store.
The next step is just to be committed and disciplined to NOT eating junk food. It won't be easy to stop eating these foods. Especially when your spouse, kids, roommates, or co-workers have them in front of you.
Cravings are real. Acknowledge that they exist. Try your best to resist. I still get cravings for certain junk foods (combo of peanut butter filled pretzels and peanut M&M's) and those cravings are more powerful than a craving for nicotine (I had a habit for over 10 years).
If you cave and eat junk, don't be too hard on yourself. Everyone does it. I still do it. Forgive yourself and commit to doing better. Progress is the goal, not perfection.
It may take several months of trying, but once you're able to go 3-4 weeks without junk food then you will have adjusted your gut biome so the cravings will disappear. Then resisting those sweet treats becomes automatic.
3. Eat out less: Restaurant foods are designed to be as delicious as possible. That means more taste and more calories. Similar to junk foods: they're hard to NOT overeat.
The simplest solution is to prepare & eat most meals at home. Prepare and pack your meals with you when spending time out of the house. I know that sounds like a pain, but it's really not that hard to do. I do it, and I'm pretty lazy about food prep.
When you do eat out, then stick to high protein, high fiber meals. Think double-meat sandwiches with half the bread. Or a salad with protein. Avoid anything fried (think appetizers).
Boring? A little. But they're filling, nutritious, and lower in calories - the triple combo for weight loss.
4. Don't eat after dinner: You don't need snacks in the evening. You're not doing anything physically demanding - probably laying around watching Netflix before bed - so those extra snack calories are just being stored as bodyfat while you're sleeping and they're likely impacting your sleep quality as well, a great way to cause next-day cravings.
If you feel like you need a snack, then make it water, meat, eggs, fruits, or veggies. Not chips, cookies, candies, etc.
5. Stop relying on faulty hunger cues: Have you ever dated someone who ended up being a complete jerk? You may have even ignored obvious red flags of them being jerks because you were "listening to your heart."
The problem is your emotions are dumb. Both when it comes to finding a long-term partner and when it comes to deciding what to eat and how much.
Relying on how hungry / full you feel is a poor way to decide what & how much to eat because hunger is an emotion. In other words, hunger is a poor judge for making wise eating decisions especially when it comes to super tasty junk foods and restaurant foods (hunger / fullness only works well for judging correct amounts of WHOLE foods WITHOUT high calories sauces, creams, etc.).
Instead, calculate your daily calorie needs (for weight loss, 10X your bodyweight in lbs is a great target for daily calories). If you're 200 lbs, then your daily calorie target is 10X200 = 2,000 cals for weight loss (or 14,000 cals per week allowing for some day-to-day variability).
Then figure out how many calories you'll have in each meal: spread 2,000 calories over 3 meals (600 cals each) and a snack (200 cals). Or have a light breakfast & lunch (400 cals each) with a big ol' 1,200 calorie dinner. When you eat or how it's spread throughout the day really doesn't matter much at all (just try not to eat big meals within 3 hours of bedtime).
Then find the right foods and the right quantities to hit those meal targets (my advice: stick mostly to meats, eggs, fruits, and veggies for most fullness with fewest calories).
Take the emotions of hunger & fullness out of the decision-making process. Be logical about it. Plan it out, stick to the plan, eat the right amount of the right stuff, do it for weeks and months, and you'll lose weight.
6. Stop eating foods you're sensitive to: This is unique to each person, but the main culprits are going to be gluten, dairy, soy, corn, eggs, and certain raw vegetables.
You can try to figure it out on your own with elimination diets, but it's much easier to take a food sensitivity test or a full gut biome analysis from a company like Viome.
I bet most people are eating foods that are causing them heartburn, indigestion, bloating, gas, diarrhea, etc every day without realizing it.
Case in point: my wife loves eggs. She ate them every day for breakfast (like I do!). She took a food sensitivity test and it said she's very sensitive to egg whites. She stopped eating eggs, and lo and behold it made a HUGE difference to how she felt every day.
Summing it all up...
There's nothing earth shattering about the nutrition advice above. It's simple and it works. It's how I lost over 30 lbs of bodyfat. It's how I stay below 8% bodyfat year-round.
By simplest nutrition advice is to stay full on meats, eggs, fruits, and veggies. Anything else is unnecessary: even breads, pastas, cereals, and other starches. Save them for after workouts, but otherwise keep them to a minimum for weight loss.
Plan out a few boring meals made up of meats, eggs, fruits, and veggies and eat those most of the time. Have some fun meals a couple times a week (parties, date night, etc), but keep it reasonable.
Exercising will help - especially walking (easiest to do, stress relieving, low impact). So will quality sleep, low stress, lifting weights, etc.
But more than anything - by far - nutrition will determine your bodyweight. Get your nutrition dialed in and it will change your life. Best, Coach Paul
PS - I help busy people get lean, strong, and healthy by coaching them to become self-sufficient in fitness. If you'd like help changing your life and body, then book a call and let's chat!
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